ICIJInternational Consortium of Investigative Journalists
05.06.2026 à 18:52
Chinese spies are posing as recruiters to target officials and journalists
The U.S. and its key intelligence partners say that China’s military intelligence services are using online job platforms and networking sites to lure foreigners who have access to sensitive information.
In a bulletin released this week, the so-called Five Eyes alliance warned that Chinese intelligence officers were posing as recruiters on LinkedIn and other sites to target government and military personnel as well as journalists and academics who could have access to classified or privileged information. The Five Eyes include domestic security agencies from the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand
The officers build relationships with job candidates and may offer targets money in exchange for reports on topics of interest to the Chinese government, including defense and trade, according to the bulletin. Their goal is to “ultimately seek to acquire privileged military, political and economic intelligence that can provide China with a strategic and tactical advantage over the Five Eyes,” the bulletin said.
The warning echoes the experience of reporters with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, who were recently approached by these purported recruiters. After ICIJ published China Targets, an investigation into China’s transnational repression, the targets began receiving suspicious emails and messages on LinkedIn.
Recommended reading TRANSNATIONAL REPRESSION Phony whistleblowers, fake journalists and cyber spies: ICIJ network targeted after China Targets probe Apr 27, 2026 Digital repression Cyberattack against Uyghur rights activists shows hallmarks of Chinese repression tactics, researchers say Apr 28, 2025 OVERVIEW Inside China’s machinery of repression — and how it crushes dissent around the world Apr 28, 2025
04.06.2026 à 16:25
Mexico seizes suspicious Keytruda in raid to dismantle counterfeit medication ring
Federal authorities in Mexico seized vials labeled as Keytruda, the world’s bestselling drug, during an operation to dismantle a counterfeit ring in a suburb outside of the capital city, sources with direct knowledge of the raid told the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists Friday. This is the second operation that has led to arrests where vials labeled as the cancer medication were seized.
In a joint operation in March, Mexico’s security ministry, Secretariat of the Navy (known as SEMAR) and the Attorney General’s office seized 15,000 doses of clonazepam, more than 100 counterfeit vaccines and 1,000 vaccine labels, believed to be used to produce falsified medication, according to an April press release. They also found guns, cocaine and five vials labeled Keytruda, two sources told ICIJ. Merck could not confirm whether the vials were real or counterfeit.
Keytruda, known generically as pembrolizumab, has been a game changer in cancer treatment — with a price to match. ICIJ’s Cancer Calculus investigation, published in April, revealed how the high cost of the drug has fueled demand for counterfeits.
Vials that appear to be labeled as Keytruda found in a raid by Mexican authorities in the town of Huixquilucan. Image: Mexico Security Ministry
The investigation, which brought together reporters in 37 countries, exposed the inner workings of a system that protects pharmaceutical pricing monopolies and prioritizes profit over access. Keytruda is produced by the pharmaceutical company Merck and Co., known as MSD outside of the United States and Canada.
In Mexico, reporters from Quinto Elemento Lab, El País, El Sol de México and Univision found that falsified vials of the cancer drug were supplied to public hospitals through medication distributors that, at times, do not comply with national health standards. One patient died while being infused with fake Keytruda, Merck confirmed as part of ICIJ’s previous reporting. Another patient, whose case was documented by Univision, claimed to suffer painful side effects after being administered falsified Keytruda twice in a public hospital in Mérida, the largest city in the state of Yucatán.
Only Merck can confirm if vials are authentic or counterfeit, since the patented formula is known only to the company. The five vials seized in the March raid remain in the custody of authorities and have not yet been provided to MSD for analysis, Anthony Zook, associate vice president for MSD Global Security, said in a statement to ICIJ.
“Therefore, we are not in a position to confirm their authenticity or whether they are genuine or falsified,” Zook said. “We continue to closely monitor the situation and stand ready to support the authorities should our technical expertise be requested.”
Two people, a man and a woman, were arrested during the March raid in the town of Huixquilucan, 59 miles west of Mexico City, according to the press release.
https://www.icij.org/investigations/cancer-calculus/cancer-drug-counterfeits-keytruda-immunotherapy/
COUNTERFEITS Counterfeiters cash in on the world’s bestselling cancer drug Apr 13, 2026
https://www.icij.org/investigations/cancer-calculus/merck-keytruda-cancer-drug-price/
Recommended reading COUNTERFEITS Counterfeiters cash in on the world’s bestselling cancer drug Apr 13, 2026 OVERVIEW How Merck turned its wonder drug into a blockbuster — and priced out cancer patients worldwide Apr 13, 2026 PARTNER STORIES A ‘burgeoning black market’, inflated dosing and the over-judicialization of health care: reporters around the world tell stories about Keytruda Apr 21, 2026
01.06.2026 à 19:05
Fidelity opened account for Epstein, even as outrage grew
Investment giant Fidelity opened a brokerage account for Jeffrey Epstein months before his 2019 arrest, according to a document reviewed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. The account took in millions of dollars as Epstein publicly faced intense renewed scrutiny, according to the record.
The new details about Epstein’s finances, contained in data briefly published by the United States Justice Department and later removed, add Fidelity Investments, a firm with trillions of dollars in assets under management, to a list of financial institutions that moved large sums of money for Epstein.
Fidelity opened the account in mid-April 2019, and it received more than $5 million by the time Fidelity apparently moved to close it in late May of that year, several weeks before Epstein’s arrest on sex trafficking charges, according to the document.
Debra LaPrevotte, a former FBI agent specializing in corruption and financial crime, said that the significant public developments relating to the Epstein case “should have been enough that Fidelity did not want Epstein as a client.”
In late 2018, a Miami Herald series that identified more than 60 alleged victims of the disgraced financier ignited new interest and outrage around the Epstein case. The following February, a federal judge ruled that the Justice Department’s involvement in a lenient plea deal with Epstein in 2008 had violated the law, and the department opened an inquiry into its handling of the case. In March of 2019, a group of more than a hundred lawmakers demanded the Justice Department reopen the investigation into Epstein.
Fidelity did not respond to requests for comment. The revelations come from a Fidelity record that the Justice Department briefly published in late January as a part of its congressionally mandated disclosure of Epstein case files. The Justice Department subsequently withdrew the file and replaced it with a fully blacked-out version, although ICIJ retained a copy of the originally released file. The Justice Department did not respond to questions on why it withdrew the document.
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